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Saturday, February 7, 2015

The Brave Girl Who Asked for Help

Children need role models, I am told, and
this is why I am always telling my own kids so many stories. All of the time,
in fact. You know: Myths, fables, fairy tales, with characters that embody some
personal characteristic I’d like my kids to see and to emulate, maybe.

So someday – not today, but someday! – I will
tell them a story about my old friend, Michelle. I will tell them about a time when
Michelle was very scared but also very brave and knew to go and to ask others
for help.

I will tell my kids the Story of the Brave
Girl Who Asked for Help.

Michelle was brave because she knocked on my
door without calling ahead. She was brave because, when I answered the door,
she just pushed her way on in.

She pushed her way on in and she started
pacing around my living room. She stared at her feet. She crossed her arms. She
appeared nervous, you know?

I was eating grapes. Big red ones. Just fantastic.
I kept eating and I waited for something else to happen.

And sure enough, eventually something else
happened.

“You…
you’re a lesbian, right?” Michelle said,
still pacing.

“I am,” I said. It was true.

“Could
you… Please. Um. Could you do me a big favor?” Michelle said.

I chewed. Slowly.

“Well…” I said.

“That
sort of depends,”
I said.

“Were
those last two questions related in any way?” I said.

Michelle, well, she exhaled really loud and
she lowered her head even farther and she marched into my kitchen. That was
kind of brave of her, wouldn’t you agree?

She sat down at my kitchen table. She pressed
her face down directly onto the tabletop. And she stayed like that for a long
time while I emptied my dishwasher.

I could not foresee any scenario in which
this encounter went well from here.

“Bryan
and I were fooling around this morning,” she said finally, her face still implanted firmly
on the tabletop.

“Okay,” I said. I started
scrubbing one of the dishes even though it was already impressively clean.

“We
were using this tiny little vibrator thing but we didn’t read the instructions
for it,”
Michelle said. She raised her head off the table. I believe she was gauging my
reaction to her story. I tried to show none.

She continued: “Anyway, apparently, you’re supposed to attach it to like a… a… a cock ring,
but we didn’t know that… and now it is lost up inside me.”

I nodded my head. Slowly. Thoughtfully. I
remember thinking, “Maybe I should go buy
some more of those grapes right about now.”

Then I started asking questions. Really, I guess
I started asking a lot of half-questions.

Like, “Are
you su-u-ure-?”

-She was.

And, “Does
it hurt? Is it… Is it o-o-on?”

-It did not and it was not.

And, “Is
it…. magnetic? Maybe-e-e-?”

-They’d already tried that.

“And
Bryan, he-e-e-e-?”

-Had tried to retrieve it with his fat,
stubby fingers, yes.

“But my
fingers a-a-a-re-?”

-Long and skinny. Plus, I was a lesbian.

I sat down. I spread my hands wide across the
tabletop and I stared at them for a long, long time. While I was staring, the
sunlight through the windows moved across the kitchen floor.

“You’re
going to write about this on your blog, aren’t you?” Michelle said.

“I’m
afraid so.”
I said. “I’m sorry. It can’t be helped.
You can pick the name that I use for you in it, though..”

“Joanna,” she said without
hesitation.

“Joanna
it is!”
I said to Michelle.

Oh.

Oops.

After that, I talked to Michelle for a long
while. I talked about how she was going to have to be brave a little more.
About how she was going to have to go see a doctor. About how this wasn’t going
to be the most embarrassing object that doctor ever pulled out of somebody.
About how this wasn’t even going to be the most embarrassing object he pulled
out of somebody this week.

Now, this whole time I went on talking to
Michelle, she was still pressing her face straight down on the tabletop. Not
speaking, not moving, not acknowledging I was talking at all.

Finally, I got up and started washing some more
clean dishes.

I have never been comfortable turning people
down when they come to me for help. I hate it! I know how hard it is to ask for
help.

So this long silence of Michelle’s, it was
driving me insane.

And when I was just about ready to cave, to
give in, to agree to go ahead and, you know, give my friend a hand (or at least
a couple fingers), Michelle raised her head back up. She got up out of the
chair. She raised her right hand.

“Got
it!”
she said. Sure enough, there was something small and purple there in her palm.

Michelle started walking back to the front
door.

I followed after her. “Were you… fishing around inside yourself this whole time?” I said.

“At my
kitchen table?”
I said.

Michelle walked out my front door, across my
lawn, and out to her car. She did not look back.

“Goodbye!” I shouted after her.
I waved. “I will tell the world of your
bravery in coming here today, Michelle!”

64 comments:

"Children need role models, I am told, and this is why I am always telling my own kids so many stories. All of the time, in fact. You know: Myths, fables, fairy tales, with characters that embody some personal characteristic I’d like my kids to see and to emulate, maybe."

Heroes Come In All Shapes and SizesThere are real heroes all over the world, but they are generally not in the spotlight.

I pulled your comment over here from G+ in case anyone else has been having trouble with comments.

I fiddled around with my comment posting rules some more, so i hope the problem is resolved. It might take a while for them to post (because I might be slow to approve them), but I hope they don't disappear down a black hole anymore.

You're probably right about asking for help being a sign of bravery. I'd sooner die than ask ANYone for ANYthing. Nope .... my Dad, Bull Meechum, frowned on weaklings, ne'er-do-wells, moochers, and sissies. All one in the same, dont'cha know. But like you I have the same struggle about being ASKED for help and saying no. I do things on a regular basis, for my family, mostly, but friends, too, that are a detriment to my own well being because I can't say NO. If I CAN help ... By gumpers, and have the time, wherewithal,(Usually it's a money thing), or whatever... I'm compelled to DO it. Usually without thinking of the pending consequences(I. am. not. rich. or. wealthy.) or fallout I'm certain to receive from my "partner", Mr. Henry F. Potter, I don't even consider saying no. I realized this situation a couple years ago and as a result the only real new year's resolution I've had for the past two January oneths has been "Learn To Say No!". I'm still not there yet, either. I think I do it subconsciously just to piss off the Bull, but I'm certain helping others is the right thing to do. Especially family. But NO is a perfectly good answer, too. Drawing the line is what's difficult for me. And I am POSITIVE you're correct about the foreign objects doctors pull out of people. You'd think that ladies would be the creative ones when it came to that ... but you'd be wrong ... at least according to my cousin's husband, the proctologist. He has some very entertaining stories about the calls he gets to the E.R. in the wee hours and the things he has to retrieve. On the other hand, I don't have a gynocologist friend to ..... rebut ..... so to speak, those findings and I could be wrong.

Speaking of which, I don't mean to bother you, sir, but I ran out of gas on my way to Louisiana. I just need like, like maybe 5 dollars and we'd be able to get down the road to my friend's to get some more money to get there. I hate to bother you, but if you can spare anything at all...

There's a guy who goes by "El Chupacabra" who stops by here and works in the health care industry. If he stops by for this one, I'm sure he has a story or two. Ewww.

Katy. Squat, BJ and I are forming our own church and, after we raise our first $10 million in tithes, we'll have a quite nice chapel. Take maybe six weeks to get the cash, another year to build. You think thirteen months is a decent courting time?

I'm thrilled to learn you're starting your own church - and hopefully your own religion!

I have a list of laws I'd like to get around by saying that I have a contrary "firmly held belief." According to recent Supreme Court precedent, this should get me out of having to comply with the law.

As much as I enjoyed this post, you've been away a while and have left a lot of dangling plot holes. It would be like if, after a two month break, The Walking Dead came back and now the show is a romantic comedy. What the hell happened with the stalker? What happened to your brother? Why did you decide to come back? What the hell is going on!?! Was Michelle-I-mean-Joanna wearing a skirt or pants? Did she suffer from Toxic Shock Syndrome like when a tampon is forgotten all up in the works? I'm happy that you're back.

This was fantastic. You know, we always hear stories about people getting things stuck inside of them, but I've never heard of one personally. It's always just a story about a guy or a gal. No name, just something that happened to someone somewhere. So it's nice to put a name to this kind of thing. Joanna. Michelle. Whatever.

And I'm also glad to hear that I'm not the only one who doesn't understand how this whole cock ring vibrator thing works. And, frankly, is okay with staying uninformed.

I've always wondered how people smuggle objects into prisons without having the same extraction issues later. I mean, drugs and cell phones or weapons would have to require a bit of space, right? And you can't really get through the "bend over" cavity search exam if you have a draw string dangling around for handy-dandy yanks when you need to make a call. Like the Dustin Hoffman forger character (Louis Dega) in "Papillon" who smuggled a cylinder of money into prison in order to bribe guards and buy protection... how the hell does one get at one's funds if you've shoved it into the nether regions of one's Anytime Teller?

Here I was trying to keep two kittens from tearing the house down around me, and now I'm curious about things a man really shouldn't worry about. It's never a dull moment at your place, Katy.

About the strangest thing I've had happen involving a knock on the door was when a neighbor I don't really even know came over to see if I might happen to have any pain pills he could "borrow". It was about a year after I'd moved into this house, and I'd seen the guy in the neighborhood a time or two and waved, but one day he was at the door telling me about his back surgeries and how he was going to see his doctor again in the morning, but if he could JUST find some sort of relief in the meantime? I guess I'm an enabler of the worst sort. I had a couple of hydrocodone from my own neck surgery and gave 'em up for the cause. He came back about a week later with a different malady, and I had to plead poverty. Fresh out of pharmaceuticals for random strangers, sorry.

Looking back on it, though, I'm glad he wanted pills and not anything invasive like your visitor needed.

I'm trying to come up with a good soundtrack to this event. At first I was thinking something industrial. Then I came up with "All the Way from Memphis" by Mott the Hoople. Now when people are at my table, fishing inside themselves for strange objects, I'll always think of that song.

I am going to listen to that tonight. My knowledge of Mott the Hoople doesn't extend any farther than "All the Young Dudes." But I'm always up for good music that goes well with, well, the topic described in this blog post.

“You deserve to be gassed or shot, depending on the circumstances. You're a health risk, a risk to children, and a risk to society. Sick, disgusting dyke. Crawl off and DIE.”– Paula A. R. DeAngelis, PhD